Cooking and other Food Stuff

Hazelnut & Linseed Spelt Sourdough

Another creation from Terence. He seems to be really enjoying himself of late. I was looking through my store cupboard and found a jar of linseed. I don’t use linseed very often – i used to sprinkle some on my cereal when i was running more for the omega-3 but this jar has just sat there for quite some time.

In my new breadmaking adventure, it seems like a prime opportunity to use them up. I also found some hazelnuts and thought they might work well together.

Since i’m still experimenting, i haven’t really settled into a set recipe or method yet and this website (Sourdough Baker) seems to have a whole lot to say on the matter. I’ve been reading it for a while and so i thought i would give it a go. It seemed to have the most thorough discussion of spelt flour than any i’ve seen and i wanted to try spelt and soe gave it a go. I pretty much followed the recipe line-by-line except for slightly shorter timeframe on the final stage and i formed it into a round rather than a tin.

I must say i don’t understand why there are 3 rounds of proving when most recipes i have seen want only 2, especially since the general principles of spelt seem to be to aim to not work the dough too much.

Having said that the loaf turned out good. If i use hazelnuts in the future i’l probably use less and chop them finer. The larger chunks that i thought would be lovely are in fact slightly bitter. The bread is a bit dense and spelt maybe takes a bit of getting used to but i’ll give it another go – I’m going to try an alternative spelt recipe next to see if it turns out differently.